Perspectives
by Jaenelle Angelline
Summary: Elliot and olivia's decision to take their relationship to the next level affects everyone they know in different ways. Continuation of the 'Story Of My Life' series. Read, review please! Smut version of the upcoming 'Elliot' and 'Olivia' chapters will be
1. Don

Title: Perspectives

Rating: Everyone. Nothing questionable. The smut portions of the 'Elliot' and 'Olivia' chapters will be posted under the title 'Mature Perspectives'. See author's notes.

Pairing: Elliot/Olivia romance

Disclaimer: Standard. I don't own, you don't sue, thanks!

Notes: This is a continuation of the 'Story Of My Life' series. It starts with 'Story of My Life', continues with 'Memories', then next is 'If That's What It Takes' and then this one, 'Perspectives' / 'Mature Perspectives (which is the smut version of the last two chapters of this story.) Although all the stories could be read as stand-alones, there are references to previous stories, so reading them all is recommended but not entirely necessary.

'Perspectives' is written entirely in first person (A first for me, I usually don't) but since so many people would be affected by Elliot and Olivia getting together, it made sense to write it in first-P. There are as of now eight chapters: 'Don', 'John', 'Fin', 'Casey', 'George', 'Family' (Kathy, Maureen, and Kat, and a short section from Lizzie and Dickie's POV's) 'Elliot' and 'Olivia' and I'm tossing around the idea of having a chapter on 'Alex', her POV. Unfortunately that chapter is still on the planning table; I haven't written that out yet because I still don't know how she got out of Witness Protection and got back to New York for 'Conviction'. I'm trying to cover, in depth, everyone who might be affected, either professionally or personally, by the pairing; if you can think of anyone I've missed in the above listing, please drop me a note and tell me so. The reason I'm writing this is because a lot of fanfic authors out there are tossing them together without regard fro consequences; and life, as we all know, doesn't work like that. Every action has consequences; everything has a price. The price for Olivia's and Elliot's happiness with each other is their separation, but that will turn out to be a mixed blessing.

So enjoy reading, and while I won't beg for reviews, if you think my reasoning for anything was incorrect, I'd love to hear it. Thanks!---Jaenelle Angelline

Perspectives: Don

I was upset with them for coming in late.

I remember that was the first thing I thought when I saw the two of them come in together, side by side. It wasn't unusual for them to come in together; Elliot would stop and pick up Olivia on his way into work if he happened to be in the neighborhood…and since he gave the house to Kathy and the kids and Liv helped him find an apartment in the precinct's vicinity, he was always in the neighborhood now. Part of me was relieved when that happened; I worried about her walking to work by herself on the days when one of the guys didn't give her a ride, I worried about her walking home by herself at night when anything could happen. Yes, she's a trained cop. Yes, she can take care of herself.

It didn't stop me from worrying.

But when Elliot moved into her neighborhood there also went my indicator of whether anything was happening or not. And when I use the word 'happening' I mean between the two of them. What they had was a great partnership; it always has been. What made it different was that after Kathy left, and even a little bit before, I could see the way she looked at him, and I knew that what she felt for him was a bit more than she should be feeling for her partner and a married man. And then Kathy left, and I was so sure they were going to break the rules. I even started keeping an eye on the IAB rats I knew about, hoping none of them saw my two detectives and made the connection. Because, as their captain, I was honor-bound to split them up…but as their friend and as Olivia's surrogate father, I didn't have the heart to do that.

I was completely surprised then to find out that instead of going to Olivia for comfort after that difficult case with his former partner's son, he'd gone to Olivia's friend, Dr. Hendrix. I saw them together at a bar one night when I stopped on my way home to talk to Fin and John about a case; Elliot was sitting there with the good doctor as if no one else existed in the world, and there was my girl sitting with Fin and John and putting up a convincing show of not being bothered that he, who used to come and talk to her about everything, suddenly wasn't talking to her anymore. John and Fin were convinced; I wasn't. I've seen Olivia in all her moods; I know her better than anyone else in her life except Elliot. It was hurting her and she wouldn't let herself show it.

Instead, she went on a rampage through a series of boyfriends and casual sex that worried me enough that I took John into my confidence and asked him to keep an eye on Liv. I knew I was acting like an over-protective father, but I couldn't help it. I was particularly worried about this one guy who I saw one night in a bar being a little more aggressive with her than I thought he should, but a few days afterward she came in looking grim and nursing a bruised fist and I never saw the jerk again. She seemed to settle out after that, and Elliot's fling with Dr. Hendrix faded out at about the same time, and they went back to being the partnership I knew and loved and watched and worried over.

I hated to do it, but this year has been so far a really bad one as far as caseload goes. I split up Elliot and Liv and John and Fin and assigned them all cases to work on separately. Olivia, bless her heart, went at her cases with her usual fervor and dedication, and made progress. Elliot, on the other hand, seems a little lost without her. She's closed five cases already; I've taken Elliot out of the lineup of case-catchers because he's having trouble with his. Part of it is the fact that he's suddenly trying to spend as much time with his kids as he can, trying to reassure them that even though he and Kathy aren't living together they both still love the kids. It works; they came out of the divorce relatively unscathed, but it cost Elliot time on the job and a lot of heartache. I didn't blame Kathy for leaving; being a cop is hard enough and SVU especially so; working this unit requires so much of an expenditure of personal emotion that he didn't have much left for her. And it takes two to make a marriage work.

A week ago Elliot came in alone, sat down at his desk and proceeded to stare at Olivia whenever she wasn't looking the whole day. He did the same thing the next day. And the next. And the next. I was starting to wonder what was wrong when I heard Fin and John talking about having seen Olivia's former partner Dave Freeman at O'Malley's four nights previously, and I thought maybe Elliot was reevaluating his treatment of her…until I saw his eyes. And I wondered why it had taken him so long to see what I'd seen coming a year ago.

I don't know what happened that night, the night before they'd come in together and I picked at them about being late. I was upset with them for being late, but what struck me immediately was that it didn't seem to bother either one of them much. They were looking at each other, and their relationship had, magically overnight, been restored to what it had been right before Kathy left. Except for one thing; Elliot still had that realization in his eyes. When I watched them leave, to grab lunch and then pick up Chris Smallwood, I wondered if they were going to talk, to resolve those unresolved issues.

I'm never going to forget the way the bottom dropped out of my life when dispatch called to say shots had been fired and an officer was hit. Olivia was the one who called dispatch; she gave them her badge number, and I know hers as well as I know my own. As Fin drove one sedan out to the scene and I drove the other with John as my passenger, he tried to tell me that they both were okay. We met the ambulance and the uniforms halfway there; the lower East Side belongs to the Two-One, and they sent their own out to help us. We pulled up outside, and I winced at the sight of the corpse of Chris Smallwood lying in the alley, his brains smashed out all over the street. And then I heard this crying, the sound of someone in terrible pain, and I heard Elliot shout that they were on the roof. I could see the twisted metal railing hanging from the edge of the roof as I ran in.

I'll never be able to blot out the sight that met my eyes when I got up there; Olivia, lying on her back, her favorite coat ruined by her blood, screaming and crying, delirious with agony from the hideous distortion of her dislocated shoulders and the bullet wound that seemed to have bled all over her favorite shirt. Elliot had both bare hands pressed to her shoulder, crying as he desperately tried to keep her with him. I've never heard him so broken before as he sobbed out her name, heedless of the tears that streaked his cheeks. I'd never seen him cry before.

And Olivia…she was beyond hearing him, beyond knowing the incredible feat she'd performed. She's not a particularly religious person, even though her personnel jacket lists her as Catholic. But she was begging God to let Elliot survive the fall her pain-wracked mind thought he'd taken, because she couldn't live without him. She was angry at herself for not being strong enough to save him. She was desperate because she needed him, she needed him just so she could live.

Elliot was next to her, oblivious to all of us as he begged her to stay with him, in broken tones I'd never heard him use before, in words I'd never heard from his mouth when talking about anyone. Even Kathy.

And I knew that rules be damned, if they needed each other that much I wasn't going to get in the way. Not in the long term, anyway. Fin took one of Elliot's arms, John took his other, and I cried at him to let her go, let the paramedics give her the help she needed. He fought us until he realized who we were, and then my strong detective fell apart, crying on me as he collapsed from raw anguish and shock and emotional pain, telling me he'd tried to let go, to spare her that pain, and she'd refused to let him fall.

My rookie year, right out of the academy, I'd been fighting with a perp. He somehow grabbed my arm and twisted it, and I remember the pain as my arm dislocated. It was paralyzing; I don't even have a clear memory of what happened because the pain was so all-encompassing. And here, Liv had been shot in the shoulder, and yet had managed to pull Elliot to safety while dislocating both shoulders in the process. I didn't know how she'd done it. I know that if it had been me on the rooftop with Elliot instead of her, I wouldn't have been able to do it. I would have let him go, because there was no way I could have fought through the pain to know I had to hang on. But Olivia had. I felt a surge of pride along with the fear; my little girl was stronger than I was, stronger than she gave herself credit for, and that was going to cost her because she was in so much pain and she looked so terrible, was there a chance that she might not make it or would she be, God forbid, crippled? I prayed that wouldn't happen; her life had been hard enough. She didn't deserve that.

I watched the ambulance pull away, and I had to force myself not to run for the sedan to follow them. I wanted to, but there was someone who needed to be there if Olivia died. I had a vague memory of Olivia slipping out a few times on her lunch break right after one of Elliot's daughters put in an appearance at the station, and of her having a few conversations with someone on the phone named 'Kat' and 'Maureen.' So I stopped to pick up Maureen from college on the way to St. Vincent's. I knew she feared the worst when I walked in; the way she whispered 'Daddy' like she wasn't twenty-one and Elliot was still God made me glad that I didn't have bad news for her about her father. But when she started crying at the mention of Olivia, I knew there was something else there. This wasn't the way a child would feel about her father's partner, this was the way a woman would feel about her friend. I stopped thinking of her as a child then. I stopped when she told me to stop, and somehow we ended up with Kat in the back too.

Talking to them was a real eye opener. Over the years, as Olivia's and Elliot's partnership settled into the comfortable relationship it's been, I'd gotten so accustomed to seeing them together that I always figured I'd lose one of them if they decided to go past friends. But Maureen told me point-blank that I could change the rules; and she reminded me of that long-forgotten incident with Brian Cassidy. It had been only one night, and it wasn't serious…I knew enough about Liv at that point to know she wasn't going to settle down any time soon…but they hadn't been breaking any rules, save the personal one she'd set for herself not to mix business with pleasure. And she worked just as well with Fin, or even John. There was no reason she couldn't 'partner' with one of them while still having a relationship with Elliot. I told Maureen that I'd sit and talk to them both when Olivia got out of the hospital. I didn't allow myself to think about the 'what ifs'.

I didn't regret bringing the girls when I saw Elliot at the hospital. His coat was still smeared with Olivia's blood, and he looked so lost. The girls just threw their arms around him and some of the pain left his face, but not all, and the worst of it was still there. It didn't leave until the doctor told us she was all right, she was going to be all right, and she could go home as soon as they finished giving her the transfusion she needed.

And then he told me that he'd told her he loved her. And she'd said it right back.

I'd been waiting for this for so long it was somewhat anti-climactic. My brain immediately went into overdrive, thinking about what I'd have to do to make the road a little easier for my two best detectives—no, my friend and my surrogate daughter. They were right for each other; it just took them a while to see that.

I look up from the top of my desk where I've been lost in my musings, and realize that the sound level outside the door has picked up considerably. I get up, go to the door, open it. Olivia's standing there, one arm in a sling, the other shoulder heavily-bandaged. But she's clear-eyed and smiling, and there's a light in her eyes I haven't seen in a very long time. She looks, for the first time since I've known her, completely happy.

Elliot chose to take a sick day today, so he's off. He's dressed in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, and a casual coat. He's taking Olivia's right now, easing it carefully off her bandaged shoulders, as carefully as if she's a fragile, breakable porcelain doll. Ordinarily she'd snap at him for doing that; I see John and Fin exchange glances when she doesn't.

She and Elliot break off their conversation with the other two when they see me in the doorway, and head straight for me. I stand aside, mutely inviting them to enter my office; they do, and I close the door. I'll talk to John and Fin later.

They both look a little uncomfortable, a little uncertain. I know what they've come to say, and I also know that neither one of them is certain how to approach the topic.

Fine. I'll do it. I approach Olivia first, wrap my arms around her in a hug, and tell her, "I'm glad you're okay."

She looks back at me with heartfelt gratitude and says, "Thank you, Captain."

"Don," I correct her. "I'm not going into 'Captain' mode right now because you're still off duty. I'll wait until you're back before I yell at you for being stupid and going into a dangerous situation alone." But I can't keep my pride out of my voice, my face, my eyes, and they see it.

"I had backup, Don," Elliot speaks up.

"Yeah. Your partner. Who was so determined to save you she went through hell for you." I speak bluntly. "What the hell happened up there, anyway?" I'm curious. I have to ask.

So they tell me, and I sit down hard and grip the desk as I realize just what she went through. She grabbed Elliot's left arm instinctively, the minute he started to go over; her arms were dislocated when Chris Smallwood, and Elliot's, weight came to an abrupt stop. She'd flung herself down on the roof, hoping her own hundred-and-thirty-pound counterweight would be enough to keep Elliot's hundred-and-eighty-pound body and Chris Smallwood's hundred-and-fifty from falling to their deaths. And it had, but just barely, and I hear her voice catch now as she describes feeling her stomach scrape inch by inch over that roof, abrading her skin as the weight inexorably dragged her over. If Elliot hadn't made the decision to let Chris Smallwood fall, all three of them would have died in a six-story drop. And I would have mourned the loss of two of my best detectives, and the entire unit would have been torn apart. I know Olivia's and Elliot's lives were bought with a perp's, and I should feel guilty about his death, but instead all I feel is an immense gratitude to God that they were spared.

It doesn't escape my notice, though, that Elliot's sitting closer to her than he usually does, or that several times during her narrative he reached for her hand and held it gently as she tells me about her pain. She glosses over it, but I know what it cost her; the evidence is right in front of me, in a sling and bandages. Her eyes are too bright, and she didn't snap at Elliot; it's the painkillers they gave her at the hospital before they released her, I'm fairly certain. Later when she comes down off them she's going to be in agony from strained tendons and muscles. I hope the hospital prescribed her some heavy painkillers. She won't take them unless she's in so much pain she can't stand it, and even then she'll take only the minimum dosage.

"Let's stop beating around the bush," I say when I realize that while I thought about this, they have been sitting there, uneasily waiting for 'Dad' to pronounce sentence. "You and Elliot are now officially 'dating', am I right?"

"Yeah." Olivia's gaze falters for a moment, then she lifts her chin and looks me in the eyes. "Elliot's worked here for longer; he has seniority. I've only been here for eight. I came in today to pick up a set of transfer papers; I'm thinking of trying Vice, or maybe work Homicide at the Two-Seven under Van Buren. She's already said she'd welcome the help."

I'm a little surprised; Anita didn't mention she'd talked to Olivia. "Do you want to transfer?" I ask her bluntly.

She looks surprised. "I have to, Cap," she says finally, simply. "There are rules about dating your partner."

"That doesn't mean you have to leave the unit." I wish I could tell them that it doesn't mean they have to split up their partnership, but I can't have them go together into a situation that could be dangerous. After seeing Maureen and Kat's reactions when I came to get them, I can't put them through that again. If something happens to Elliot, Olivia has to be the one to tell them, and vice versa. "I could let you go out to interview witnesses, but as far as picking up perps, someone else will have to go because I can't trust that you'll have the emotional distance to do what's necessary." I see Elliot about to protest, and I hold up a hand. "El, if I'd sent John with you, or Fin, this wouldn't have happened to Olivia."

"If Olivia weren't there I wouldn't be here either."

"Wrong," I say, ignoring the sharp looks they give me. "Fin and John have just as much of an interest in keeping you safe. If one of them had caught you, Chris might not have died because they're both capable of pulling that weight. But you and Chris together outweigh Olivia by at least twice; it's a damn miracle you're here." Elliot can't reason his way out of that; he goes silent.

"Right." I stand up. "Now that we have that settled, Elliot, take Olivia home and take care of her. I'll see you when she's cleared to return to duty." Elliot stares at me, and I feel a smile break over my face. "You had some vacation time coming up." Actually, he didn't; I had to do some petty wrangling, and his annual August vacation, the one he looks forward to because he takes his kids to Rockaway Beach for a week, will have to go, but at this point I don't think he cares. And Maureen and Kat will understand.

They stand, and just before they open my office door, I stop them. "Liv?"

She turns to me. "Yes, Don?"

"Take your meds on time." She looks like she's about to protest, and again I cut her off. "I know you. You're going to skip doses and refuse to take them until you're in so much pain you're writhing from it." I can't get that image of her twisting in agony on that rooftop out of my head; it's going to haunt my dreams for a long time. I never want to see my girl in that much pain again. "So as your commanding officer, I'm ordering you to take your meds on time. Every time."

She grins at me, and I sit down as they exit. Interview over. Actually, I didn't need to add that last bit; the reason I did was to give John and Fin time to get away from the door so that El and Liv wouldn't find them holding glasses to their ears. Sometimes having a close-knit unit like this is a curse.

About an hour after I leave, an hour during which John and Fin watch my door and do some intense talking so quietly I couldn't make out what they were talking about, they both get up from their desks and come to my office. The door is open; they give the doorframe a token tap before walking in. Fin closes the door behind him.

I lace my hands behind my head and wait for one of them to start.

John goes first, putting a sheet of paper on my desk. "I'm requesting a new partner. So is Fin." Fin wordlessly puts another sheet of paper, another request form, beside the one John plunked down.

"Any particular reason why?" I already know the answer, but I want to hear it from them. Have they already decided who's going to work with Explosive Elliot, and who's going to work with Over-concerned Olivia? Or are they going to leave it up to me?

John crosses his arms. "Cap. We heard what you said to Liv and El this morning."

I knew that.

Fin leans over my desk. "I'll work with Liv. John says he's okay with El."

Hmm. Not what I would have done. The uptown girl and the Bronx boy? The once-divorced and the four-times-divorced? Interesting. "Any particular reason?"

"Yeah. Tips." I frowned. Fin explained. "I know how to handle grown-up kids. My current squeeze has two of her own, and they're ambivalent about me. And Liv's such a straight shooter it'll be fun to drag her through the gritty neighborhoods and teach her a little about the other side."

Ah, the back street guy wants to teach the uptown girl a little about the other half. Hmm. El's got more dirt on his soul than Liv does; this could be a good thing for her. I always sent El and Liv out to interview the high-profile witnesses because she and El have that clean-cut uptown look that Fin and John together don't have. But El and John together could do that too, though I will put Liv together with Elliot on the very high-profile ones because people respond better to a female cop asking questions about rape victims. "John?"

John shrugs. "Been there, done that. I've given up on finding true love of my own, Don, but that doesn't mean I can't recognize when two other people have it. If El screws up with Liv it'll break her heart, and I don't want to see that happen if I can help it." Now _that_ is a pretty good reason. John's always been a little protective of Liv; at first I wondered if he sees her as a victim like the ones we help every day because of her past; then later I wondered if he didn't have a little of a 'thing' for her himself. Now I can recognize it as more of a big-brother sort of thing; he sees her as a surrogate little sister, like I see her as a surrogate daughter. So Big Brother wants to make sure Little Sis's new guy doesn't mess with her. I wonder how Liv's going to feel when she finds that out…and I have to fight a smile. After the new arrangement takes effect, I'll sell tickets and find a safe place to watch the explosion when Olivia figures out why John's all of a sudden offering Elliot love advice. It will be…entertaining.

"All right." They smile at each other and leave, and I close my office door and sit for a moment, smiling.

Sometimes a close-knit unit like this one can be a blessing.


	2. John

Perspectives 2: John

I wanted to strangle him.

Elliot. I wanted to strangle Elliot. For dragging my little sis into a dangerous situation. For getting hurt the one person who would sit with me in a bar after a bad case and listen to me spout conspiracy theories because she knew I hated talking about my feelings but I desperately needed some company. For getting hurt the person who baked me cookies, for getting hurt the one person who sympathized with me against the cruelties my ex-wives inflicted on me, even if she didn't believe that Gwen had thrown my pet crocodile off the Brooklyn Bridge. Even if Olivia went off later and laughed at me, she never laughed at me to my face. Not like Elliot and Fin did. They didn't pretend to understand, or care, or sympathize. They laughed and mocked and needled. Yeah, it was meant in good fun, and they're guys; they're expected to react like that. But there were times when the humor and the sarcasm and the wit were just masks, shells for the hurt that I carried around at having so little to show for my years on the earth. It was those times I needed someone to listen, to sympathize, to understand. To care. There are girlfriends and there are girl friends. I gave up on girlfriends because I didn't need them anymore with Liv around.

She doesn't judge. She's patient, she cares, she understands. She knows instinctively when I need to be laughed with and when I need to be laughed at. She knows when I need to listen, and when I need to be listened to. I don't think Elliot knows how many times during the nights I've called her, especially after a case that hurts me so deeply I can't shake it when I go home. She listens to me, and a few nights when I was feeling really down she's shown up at my door after midnight, plunked down on my battered old couch, and watched old black and white movies with me no matter how ridiculous she says they are, until her eyes cross and she falls asleep on the other end of the couch.

I couldn't bear to lose that.

I don't think she knows how big a part of my life she's become. I don't think she knows that the only reason I'm still in this unit is because of her. I don't think she knows how important to me it is that when she decides to try a new holiday cookie recipe I'm the first to taste test it. I don't think she knows how important to me it is that she helps me shop for my ex-wives; when Christmas comes and I'm obliged to send them a present, she tells me if what I picked is going to be something they're going to like. When I forgot Gwen's birthday, Olivia picked something out and wrapped it and sent it for me so I wouldn't get my ass chewed off. I don't know how she manages to keep all of this straight in her head; I sure can't.

No, I don't want to strangle Elliot. He's important to her. All the way to the East side, I kept telling Don that they were okay, that she was okay. She'd called dispatch to tell them what was going on; that Chris Smallwood had been unexpectedly armed; that she'd been hit and it wasn't serious. We got out of the car, and at first all I could see was Chris Smallwood dead on the pavement. I'm so jaded that the sight of a body with a smashed head didn't make me feel any bit uneasy, isn't that sad? I thought maybe Liv and Elliot had just lost it with him and he'd fallen. Then I heard the terrible scream, and Elliot was calling for help, and the voice making those awful screams was Liv's.

I'm not a religious man; I've seen too much shit to feel any sort of belief in a God who would let this stuff happen to good people. But I found myself whispering God's name inaudibly when we stepped out on that rooftop and I saw Olivia with her arms at that sickening angle to her body, screaming in pain and terror and begging God for Elliot's safety. He was right next to her, begging her to stay with him, to stay alive, and she was so far gone she didn't even hear him. He had his hands pressed to the bullet wound in her shoulder, and she was bleeding all over his hands and her coat and the rooftop…I didn't think she could lose any more blood and still be alive.

I grabbed one of his arms, and Fin grabbed the other, and we dragged Elliot off her so the paramedics, right behind me, could get to work. He just collapsed, and I've never seen any man in such bad shape; he was literally falling apart, and his hands were caked with Olivia's blood, and I wanted to shout at him that he was her partner and he should have prevented this from happening. It would have been irrational; things happen, and we all know it could happen to any one of us, anytime, and knowing that was what helped me keep my mouth shut. Instead I held his arm and watched as they put her on a gurney and wheeled her off the rooftop toward the bus waiting below. Elliot stumbled blindly after them; out of pity, and because I had to get off the rooftop before anyone found out that my eyes weren't tearing from the cold wind, I followed him. I watched the ambulance go, and I wanted so badly to run for the sedan and follow it; I saw from the look in Cragen and Fin's eyes that they too wanted to follow her. She was the heart of our unit; if she died, how would we make it? If she didn't I would transfer. Somewhere else, or retire. Because the SVU had too many memories of her in it; if I stayed I'd sit there and stare at her desk and remember and it would tear me apart.

I remember when she first came; she looked all of us in the eye, and smiled, and I loved her smile the minute I saw it. Even if it did have too much sadness in it, too much pain and darkness. I cracked some sort of lame joke—I've never remembered what it was I said—and she laughed as she shook my hand. I was disappointed that I already had Monique and Elliot was next in line for a partner, but the disappointment soon turned to hope when she and Elliot had their rocky beginning. Monique wasn't really my type and the SVU was rough on her, so predictably she didn't last long. I kept waiting for things between Olivia and Elliot to fall apart so that I could ask for her to be assigned to me, but after that night in the bar with Freeman, she ran out and Elliot followed her. I followed them, and sat in my car, parked a half-block away, and watched him chase her around the block until they ended back at his car. I don't know what it was they said, but something must have gotten resolved at some point during that conversation, because the next day when they started working there was no sniping, no picking on each other.

And Elliot had suddenly managed to get her approval to the nickname 'Liv'.

I'd called her 'Livy' a few times, and she politely but firmly informed me that she hated that nickname. If she didn't like Elliot calling her 'Liv' she would have said something, and when she didn't I cautiously adopted the nickname too. It fit her; despite what I now knew of her past, she's so full of life that a room brightens when she's in it. At least for me.

So, realizing that Elliot was what she wanted, I settled back to keep an eye on her. I had no illusions about whether she'd ever see me as anything more than a friend; even with the age difference, I would drive her crazy in a week. I knew enough about her to know that. Elliot, though…I've cherished a few dreams about how they'd be if they got together; He's not the guy I would have picked for her, but she loves him. It frustrates me and Fin that neither of them realizes it. I realized that she loved him right after Kathy divorced Elliot; he went running to that head shrinker, and Olivia…Olivia dealt with her disappointment and frustration and loneliness by sleeping with a lot of different guys in a fairly short (for her) span of time. I was afraid for her; self-destruction was something I was very familiar with, and I didn't want to see the woman I cared about self-destruct.

I knew how pissed-off she would be if she knew I was keeping an eye on her. She's very independent, fiercely so, and anything that threatens that independence is something that needs to be fought against. So I didn't let her know; I kept my distance. Even when she started going out with Harry Cooper, from Vice; he was an asshole, and I swear she must have been drunk the night she picked him up at the bar and took him home with her. She saw him twice more that week; and I just barely restrained myself both nights when I saw him touching her uninvited; trying to make out with her in a crowded bar. Olivia's a very private person; she'd never do that in public. She tried to rebuff him a few times, and I came _this close_ to stepping in when I saw him almost force her knees apart under the table with his leg so he could touch hers. I must have tensed; because Don and Fin both looked around, saw what I saw, and I swear Don looked like he was going to belt Cooper. He didn't, but the next day he asked me to keep an eye on her, privately. Which I was already doing, but he didn't need to know that. Don treats her like one of his kids; I know he thinks of all of us as his kids, but Olivia has a special place in his heart. She's the daughter he always wanted but never had; when she takes risks on the job (she's such a good cop that risks on the job generally pay off) she gets into more trouble with 'Don-the-father' than with 'Don-the-Captain'.

Anyway, a week after that incident she came to work with a bruised fist and a grim face. And just like that, the day after she was her normal self, back again; single, comfortable, and happy with it. It was as if whatever fight she had with Harry Cooper let her take out her frustrations on him rather than Elliot, and all was right with her world as soon as she did it. And then, about two weeks afterward, Elliot left Dr. Hendrix at the bar and came to sit at our table with us, and suddenly everything was all right with our little family again. After that, he and Liv seemed to come to an understanding, or at least she did, because she never let herself get so upset by something he did again. She took everything in stride, kicked his ass when he needed it kicked, and covered it when she thought he needed it covered.

Up till now. I think seeing something happen to her suddenly woke Elliot up; I've been watching him over the last week, and he's been staring at her obsessively whenever he thought she wasn't looking. I think that after seeing Freeman in the bar a week ago he realized that his feelings for Olivia ran a little deeper than 'partnerly'. He's been reluctant to tell her so, but I think seeing her in so much pain on that rooftop made him realize that life is finite and he needed to tell her he loves her before something happens and he never gets a chance to.

Fin and I drove to the hospital in silence; I was thinking about Liv, and Fin…I assume he was too but I wasn't going to pry and try to guess. We walked in and saw Elliot, and I have never seen Elliot so lost. He looked as lost as I would feel if Olivia were no longer in my life; sick and terrified and at odds with himself. It didn't help that his hands and his clothes were smeared with Olivia's blood.

And then Don came in with two of Elliot's kids; Maureen and Kat. They didn't even acknowledge my presence, or Fin's; they went straight to Elliot, hugged him, and in the same breath asked about Olivia. I felt my eyebrows rise into my hairline; I hadn't known she was that important to them. Did Kathy know? I wondered if she'd use that as leverage over Elliot; after having four ex-wives, I knew what leverage was, and what could be used as leverage. This certainly counted.

Then the doc came out and told us she was going to be okay, and that we could see her. I saw the light in Elliot and his girls' eyes, and I grabbed Fin's arm and took him in there quickly. We'd pay our respects first, quickly, and then let Olivia's new family take over.

She lay in the hospital bed, looking really tired and pale, and I wanted to kill Chris Smallwood all over again when I saw the heavy bandaging on both shoulders, and the way she lay as still as possible so as not to aggravate the pain. She managed a weak smile, but after telling her that I was glad she was all right and I would handle her cases until she got back, I took my leave (And Fin and Don too, because I knew my face wasn't the one she wanted to see; it was Elliot's).

I was relieved to see her when she came in the next day. She looked better than she did when I'd seen her in the hospital; her skin was back to its dusky olive hue, and even though her movement was still stilted, due to the sling and the bandage on the other shoulder, she smiled and gave me an awkward hug. I exchanged glances with Fin when Elliot eased her coat off her shoulders…and she didn't snap at him for treating her like a breakable piece of crystal. If he'd tried to do that a few days ago she'd have taken his head off for him. Then she and Elliot headed for Cragen's office.

There is a reason I keep two shot glasses in the lower drawer of my desk.

As soon as the door closed Fin and I were holding those shot glasses to the door listening with all our might. She and Elliot told Don what happened; told him about the shooting, the gun, her catch of them both. I heard the catch in her voice when she skipped over how much pain she was in; she didn't want to hurt any of us with the telling, but we'd all heard her screams. Falling to his death was too kind for Chris Smallwood; I would have liked to put him in front of one of Hitler's firing squads, or maybe in Auschwitz…

I hear Don mention my name, and I stiffen. Don's trying to convince them that if he'd sent me or Fin with Elliot, this wouldn't have happened. He's talking about assigning them both to different partners so they could still work for him. I heard Olivia mention the Two-Seven, but as much as I liked Joe Fontana and Ed Green, I couldn't see them with Liv. I couldn't see her being happy in Homicide; Homicide would be too clinical for her. She couldn't empathize with a corpse, she couldn't help a child's body. She needed living victims to justify what she did for a living, to justify her life. Homicide would kill her.

Don's going to break up their partnership, at least on paper, and assign them both to work with Fin and me. We barely manage to make it back to our seats and stow the glasses before they both come out, talking in low voices to each other. With a nod in our direction, they leave. I stare after them, thinking. Who would I rather work with? Who would Cragen likely put her to work with?

"It's gonna be you," Fin says suddenly, drawing my attention to the partner request form he's just shoved across the desk at me. I notice he has one in his hand too, and as I look, he puts it down and starts scribbling his name on it.

"What's going to be me?"

"Liv. Cragen's gonna put her with you. I'm gonna get Elliot."

"I don't want Liv." It's an automatic denial, but as soon as it leaves my lips I realize it's true. Part of what makes what Liv and I have so special to me is that I don't see her every day, so when we do get together, we have enough to talk about that we don't fall into that awkward silence that I hate. We update each other on cases, and sometimes talking to her about something I have open helps me solve a case. She looks at a case with a woman's perspective, something completely alien to me as a man. I value that difference. I don't want to work with her.

Fin stares at me. "You'd rather work with Elliot?"

"Yeah." I pick up a pen and start filling out the form. If I worked with Elliot I'd be able to keep an eye on him. I'd be able to tell him when he's about to do something that's going to hurt Liv. I'd be able to knock some sense into his head when he needs it.

I could continue to be Liv's big brother.

Captain Cragen raises an eyebrow when Fin tells him he'll work with Liv and I'd work with Elliot. I know he was expecting to put me with Liv; the fact that we decided on our own makes him wonder. And so he asks.

"Been there, done that. I've given up on finding true love of my own, Don, but that doesn't mean I can't recognize when two other people have it. If El screws up with Liv it'll break her heart, and I don't want to see that happen if I can help it." I'm honest, as always.

I see Don weighing our reasons, thinking about what he'd planned to do, and then deciding it's a measure of how much he trusts us that he decides to let his kids make their own decisions. "All right."

Fin closes the captain's door behind me. "Well, this is going to be interestin'."

I agree wholeheartedly. The next few months are going to be very…interesting.


	3. Fin

Perspectives 3: Fin

Fuckin' asswipe.

Pardon my language, but you see, I ain't as clean as John or Elliot or Don. I am what I am, and I don't make no excuses for myself. I'm proud of who I am.

She understood that.

When I first joined up with the SVU, I sat back and took a look around at the people who were going to be my squadmates. I saw, at first glance, the usual bunch of typical upscale white people. It wasn't till I got a little deeper, under the skin, that I recognized that who they looked like on the outside wasn't who they were on the inside.

Take Elliot, for instance. Clean-cut white boy, good looks, married, four kids. Lived in Queens. People from Queens look at us Bronx folks like we ain't even s'posed to be on the same earth as them. Like their shit don't stink. I got news for you, buddy, you smell just like the rest of us. Then I looked closer. Marine tattoo, and he's as fiercely devoted to his squad mates as any Bronx boy is devoted to his hood. I respect that. He passed inspection.

John…now there was a lot more to respect at first sight. Baltimore's a tough city. Crime rate sky high, lotsa drugs and shit down there. I respected John for puttin' in all them years down there and then comin' up here and spreadin' 'round his expertise. Even if his damn paranoid ass makes me want to kick him at least once a day. He passed too.

It was a little while before I got a chance to work with Liv, and I gotta admit I was even more wrong 'bout her than I was 'bout El and John. She looked like your typical Upper West Side white girl, the kind I used to go to school with, the kind of girl who never gave me the time a' day, much less a second look. Man, was I wrong. She took a stand against me on the case, and then dug in her heels. She was stubborn. She didn't back down. I admired her balls even while I was pissed at 'em. We fought. Her instincts were pointin' her in one direction, mine was pointin' me down another, and guess who the hell was wrong that time? Yours truly. It rankled.

I went off to my favorite hangout that day after work; I still don't know how she found me. Maybe she followed me? Maybe she found out from John where I hung out? He and I were already pretty tight. Either way, I heard the noise level in the bar drop to nothin' that night, and when I looked up she was makin' her way 'round the tables straight to me. White girl, well-dressed, black bar, south Bronx? She was lookin' to get her little lily-white rich ass busted, and I saw a coupla drunks just droolin' when she passed. One of 'em made an abortive move to touch her. I didn't say a word; I thought maybe this would teach her to come bargin' in where she wasn't wanted. Teach her not to come rub my nose in my wrongs.

She musta seen the guy who tried to touch her. She didn't make any moves then, but at the next table, guy 1 nodded to a second guy who was sittin' in Liv's path. He nodded and then pushed his chair out in her path, foldin' his arms with his knees open. It was a blatant hood invitation to sex; I didn't expect Liv to understand. I expected she was going to blush, maybe look down with a hurried glance before she moved around him.

Nope.

She stopped, put her hands on her hips, and smiled. It wasn't a nice one, either. "This for me or you friend back there?" She jerked her head back toward guy 1. "I don't think he's sober enough to do it."

"This's for you, baby," he leered at her.

"Baby." Her voice dropped into a soft, sexy (if I do say so myself) purr. "Oh, baby. Where have you been all my life?" She stepped toward him, straddled his thighs, lowered herself onto his lap. I was openly starin', then; I ain't never seen an uptown girl act like that. Was Liv _actually_…

The sound of her gun's safety clicking off was loud in the silent room. The guy she was straddling suddenly went real still and started sweatin'.

"Obviously in someone else's bed, since you're wearing a ring." I stared, startled; I hadn't noticed, but sure enough, there was a narrow gold band around one finger. Her voice had lost its seductive purr and was instead low, flat, and dangerous. "Now get your hand the fuck off my thigh." I'd never heard Liv cuss.

"No harm done." He raised his hands in the air, a gesture of surrender.

"Think your shooter's big?" She pulled her piece away from his equipment and trailed the muzzle down the side of his face before pressin' it firmly into his chest. "Mine's bigger." He was sweatin' and shakin' as she placed the gun to the side of his head. "So you gonna leave me alone? Or do I have to tell your wife you were trying to make out with another woman?"

He shook his head, and she pushed herself off his lap, one move, and when she was back to full vertical her gun was gone. I hadn't even seen her re-holster the thing. Damn. She was smooth. She stepped around him without another look, in a completely silent bar, and made her way across the room to where I was sitting, grabbed the stool beside me, and ordered a Miller. Behind her, the guy she'd just intimidated got up and staggered for the door. He didn't come back in, and after a moment conversation in the room went back to normal, if somewhat subdued in volume.

We sat in silence through two of her beers. She was waiting for me to start; I couldn't think of what to say. Finally she got up and paid her tab, headed for the door.

"I'll take you home," I told her.

The ride to her place was silent except for the directions she gave me, but words didn't need to be said. Somewhere along the way the silence went from uncomfortable to comfortable; neither one of us felt like we had to say anything. When she got out of my car, she stopped long enough to say, "Thanks, Fin."

"I'm gonna like workin' with ya, Liv," I said. And I meant it.

We don't work together often; she's usually teamed up with Elliot. But every time we do pair up, I learn somethin' from her. And she learns somethin' from me. And I don't mean just at work. Don would have a litter a' kittens if he ever saw her hangin' with me and my homies, shootin' ball with us on the hood's courts, playin' pool, workin' out. I still keep in touch with some o' my ol' buddies from Narcs, and she's seen me with 'em a coupla times. She actually went out with one of my friends, once; he was the one who broke it off, no hard feelin's, he said, 'cause she was too much woman for him.

Hell, she's too much woman for me too. Not that that's a bad thing, but there ain't no way I could date Liv. She and I would fight all the time. She's strictly Elliot's girl; that much was evident the minute I walked in the first day. I just wish it were evident to them; they sure took a damn long time gettin' 'round to tellin' each other how they felt. There's been a bettin' pool among the uniforms as to how long it's gonna take Liv and El to admit what they feel for each other ain't quite partnerly. He acts like she's his main squeeze, and bristles up protectively whenever someone moves a hair wrong around her.

They got such a connection that I knew he was physically hurtin' when we got there an' we saw her in so much pain. I ain't a stranger to seein' friends hurt; I ain't a stranger to seein' women get hurt, But for some reason, seein' Liv in so much pain made me wanna hurt the bastard who'd done this to her. There's a standin' rule; if a perp takes a swing at a fellow officer, you get a free shot. I've done it before; usually on the ride back to the precinct, and twice it was for Liv. John's done it a few times too; nothing obvious, a little bobble of the hand gettin' into the back of the sedan, a head that hits the edge of the car roof. Nothin' serious. Most of the time it's satisfactory, but this time I wish the son of a bitch hadn't died. I'd rough him up cheerfully for what he done to my homegirl.

John was in shock. He just stood there lookin' after the ambulance as it pulled away, and I wanted to follow it too. We drove to the hospital in silence; I was wondering how bad it was; I hoped desperately that she wasn't gonna be crippled. She didn't deserve that, though the way she looked was so bad that I half-expected her to. John headed for the sedan mechanically; I stopped to give the ME, Melinda, some instructions, and she just waved me on. "I know how to do my job, Detective Tutuola," she said, and I just nodded and went. I got respect for any woman who can look at dead bodies all day and still stay sane; if she wasn't married I'd'a hit on her a while ago. But there was an anxious look in her eyes, and I'd seen her hesitate when she got to the scene; she'd wanted to follow us onto that roof and take care of Liv.

So after I saw Liv at the hospital and made sure she was okay, I went back to the station. Don went home; John went home. I was the only one there, and I was surprised when some of the uniforms came up to me while I was writin' up my report and asked me whether she was gonna be okay. The news had spread like wildfire; I wondered if there was anyone in the squad room who wasn't worried about her.

There was one more person who needed to know what happened before I went home and got myself smashed, and that was Melinda. I finished my report and made a copy, then headed for the ME's office.

She hadn't gone home yet; and the look on her face when I walked in told me she'd been worried 'bout Liv too. I looked at her, and everything I'd been feeling threatened to come to the fore. Normally I'd'a gone to talk to Liv when somethin' was buggin' me, or I'd invite her to shoot some hoops with me, and I'd take my frustrations for the case out on the game. Most of the time, with Liv, I didn't need to say nothin'; she knew what I felt without askin'. I think Melinda knew I needed to talk too, 'cause she didn't take the folder right away and instead asked me directly what happened. Maybe I mighta felt better if I'd pulled up a chair an' talked to her 'bout Liv, but the hurt was too fresh, the pain too real, and I was still shaken from the thought of losin' my girl. All I wanted to do was go home, get toasted, try to forget I'd seen Liv writhing in pain, forget I'd heard my proud little homegirl screaming in agony on that wet rooftop.

I just handed her the folder and headed for the elevator. I couldn't talk about it. Not with her. I wanted to be selfish, keep my memories of Liv to myself, because the good memories were gonna help me get toasted that night so I could try and forget, at least temporarily, the bad ones. Melinda ran after me, caught me in the hall. "Is she going to be all right?"

"Yeah, she's gonna be okay. She's a tough cookie." I nod and give her a faint smile, it felt more like a grimace to me, but she accepted it, and I went home. The apartment felt empty, but in my mind's eye I saw her the day after I'd been shot. She came to pick me up from the hospital, and took me home, went around getting me comfortable, and took a day off to take care of me. I knew she felt guilty that she didn't have my back when that little bodega got shot up, but she didn't have to be. I'd faintly heard her calling my name as she tried to stop the bleedin', heard her pleadin' with me to stay with her. She'd called me 'baby'; I treasured that even though I knew she didn't mean it the way most girls would. She'd simply been concerned for me; her baby was Elliot. Not that I blamed her for it; the back street guys never get the uptown girls, except in movies. But there was a lot she could learn from me, and I was glad that she would be okay in a week and she'd have the chance to learn everything I could teach her.

She and Elliot came in around midmorning, and I knew something between the two of them had changed when she didn't snap at him for carefully taking her coat from her, like she was breakable. She'd learned that she was mortal, and so had he; she seemed to appreciate the care he took, and he suddenly seemed to appreciate her. "Doing okay, homegirl?" I asked her, and she tried to smile, but I could tell the painkillers were blurring her perceptions just a little, and I didn't say anymore. It was enough that she was alive. I like this unit, but if she died I wouldn't stay. I'd go back to Narcotics because there were just too damn many memories of her in this joint.

She and Elliot disappeared into Cragen's office, and sure enough, out came John with those shot glasses. "You punk," I said, and took one, and leaned it against the door with my ear stuck to the other end. I think some of the uniforms saw what we were doing; the noise level in the room dropped to the point where we could hear.

Cragen was going to break them up so they could be together. It was a solution I hadn't considered before, but it made sense. I'd heard from John 'bout Brian Cassidy; though I'd seen the kid in narcotics, he was every inch a nice white boy, and Liv had too much dirt on her soul to ever be comfortable with him. And she musta known that the minute she got in bed with him. She needed someone dirtier. I don't think at the time she'd thought it might be Elliot, but Liv has some odd blind spots sometimes, and El's one of 'em.

We barely got back into our seats desperately trying not to look like we had been eavesdropping when they came back out. Elliot nodded to us, grabbed Liv's coat, and they left, talking to each other in low voices. John watched 'em go; I watched him as he sat there for a long while and then pulled out two blank partner request forms. We'd need to have one on file before Dad could assign them to us. I handed John one and said, "It's gonna be you." I tried to keep the envy out of my voice.

"What's gonna be me?" John had been off somewhere else.

"Liv. Cragen's gonna put her with you. I'm gonna get Elliot." I don't want Elliot. I want Liv. John's a great guy, but he's too old to move fast if something happens. I can save Olivia if something goes south.

Besides, I owe her. I owe her for her friendship, her silent companionship, all the times she whupped my ass on the b-ball court in front of my buddies. I owe her for the drinks she buys me when we go out because I need some company but I don't feel comfortable asking one of the guys. I owe her for the cookies she bakes every holiday for me. I owe her for gettin' in touch with my son and encouragin' me to start over with him. She brought Ken and me back together, got me over the hang-ups about my son's sexual orientation, and my son thinks she's the coolest white woman he knows. A moment later my brain processes what John said, and I stare at him incredulously. "You'd rather work with Elliot?" John and Elliot?

"Yeah."

Cragen's plainly surprised when I tell him I'll work with Liv and John will work with Elliot. I figure he expected that we were gonna request new partners, but I don't think he was expectin' to put El with John. "Any particular reason?" he asks us.

"I know how to handle grown-up kids. My current squeeze has two of her own, and they're ambivalent about me. And Liv's such a straight shooter it'll be fun to drag her through the gritty neighborhoods and teach her a little about the other side." And my son thinks she's cool and wonders why I don't work with her more, but I don't say that. I also don't mention how much I care. I'm from the Bronx; I don't wanna ruin my rep with anyone thinkin' I fell for an uptown girl. I don't think of her that way; she's so intense she'd drive me crazy in a week. Better that I just be her friend. John can play her big brother. Don can play her dad. But she needs a friend.

And I _am_ going to have fun dragging her through some of my rougher dives.

Don thinks about it, and agrees with me, and after I close Cragen's door behind me, I look at John and tell him, "This is gonna be interestin'."


	4. Melinda

Perspectives 4: Melinda

I hate my job sometimes.

I hope Elliot doesn't lose sleep over this.

I've seen too many bodies that fall from a height. I've seen people who fell of their own accord; I've seen people who were pushed, dropped, thrown, kicked, punched, shot off rooftops, and otherwise 'helped' to fly. I know someone who's been helped.

Chris Smallwood was helped.

You know what the bad part of it is? I don't regret it. Not a bit. And I should, because I'm a doctor. A doctor of corpses, true, but a doctor nonetheless. I should be upset with Elliot, because he played God and chose to save one life at the expense of another.

But I was in the Air Force. I've seen death, I know what it means to kill. And I know that there are people who need to be killed. I'm not saying that Chris Smallwood needed to be; only a jury could have decided that, and because of Elliot Stabler he will never face that trial.

And I don't care.

I don't know what I would have done. I don't think that I could have made the decision Elliot did. But I do know that a man who would rape a five-year-old is never going to stop, there is no cure, and that a cop who's done so much good so far and will continue to do good is worth more than a pedophile and baby-raper.

I don't flinch as I pull the sheet back from this body. I don't usually like head wounds; I find it helps to look at the faces of autopsy victims. I feel more of a connection, I feel like they want me to find the truth. But the face of this guy is barely there, it's a mess of shattered blood and bone, and I could care less. I know the truth. I don't need the autopsy to tell me.

However, this is my job. I hate it sometimes, but it's my job. I go on autopilot, carefully dissecting, cutting, weighing organs, measuring. And while I do that, dictating notes into the recorder, I think.

My heart stopped when I got to the scene. Although my responsibility was the corpse, the terrible screaming coming from the rooftop caught my attention, and I wanted desperately to leave the dead and go help the living. I knew whose voice that was; I knew who was lying on that rooftop, hurt, crying, possibly dying. But I forced myself to bend over the body, and when I looked up next, I saw the EMTs taking Olivia Benson into the ambulance; and behind them, behind her, came Elliot Stabler, looking like he was almost dying himself.

I could see from the other detectives' faces that they wanted to follow too. Even their captain. But he stopped long enough to give the uniforms orders, and then Detective Tutuola came to me and started to speak. I cut him off. "Go see your friend, Detective," I told him. "I know how to do my job." He gave me this look of thanks and headed for the sedan.

Ruben Morales came up behind me as the detective was leaving. "Jesus. What happened?" he said, looking at the corpse in front of me, oblivious to the fact that they had just dragged my friend off the rooftop. He hadn't gotten there soon enough to have seen Olivia; I forgave him for that silently.

"This guy shot Olivia Benson and then tried to pull her and her partner off the rooftop." I know that much. I don't know the specifics, but I know this much.

"He fell." Ruben says flatly. I nod; he knows as well as I do that a body doesn't end up this far into the middle of an alley without some sort of lateral propulsion. But neither of us is going to mention it. We both know who the guilty party is, and we both know that a human body can be weighed and measured, but the worth of a soul can't be measured by conventional means. Elliot is a devout Catholic; it means that he makes some decisions based on his religion, but I know that in this instance, there was no religious leaning here. Elliot made his choice; this guy, or his partner.

His partner. I smile a little at that. There is all this talk about the 'boys in blue', about the fierce loyalty and blood ties between them. I've seen a lot of partners in this job; some are partners, some aren't. Some are more.

Elliot and Olivia are more.

I wonder why it's taking them so long to see it, to acknowledge it. I see it every time they're in here; every time they exchange what I've come to think of as 'that look' when I tell them what I've found from yet another body. It's silent communication, subtler and deeper than ESP. They're two halves of a seamless whole; they know what the other is thinking. I swear they even match strides when they walk out of here.

I've seen the way they look when one of them is on the hot seat. I saw Elliot's look when he came to get the autopsy report on Horace Gorman, the man that defense attorney tried to accuse Olivia of killing. He knew she hadn't, and he was praying that the evidence would prove to the rest of the world she hadn't. When I told him the cause of death was a stabbing, I saw him visibly relax. If Olivia had killed him, cause of death would have been a gunshot wound.

I saw his look when Jeff York came into the morgue and I found he was HIV positive. It was part of the reason why I offered to do Olivia's test myself, no paperwork, no pay. It was as much for his peace of mind as it was hers; after I'd told her, I called his cell phone and told him one word: negative. All he said was "Thanks Doc," but I knew that, as brief as it was, the thanks had been as sincere and heartfelt. Yes, I knew I shouldn't have told him her test results; but he'd been just as worried about her as she was about herself and I also knew that he was the first and only person she would tell about the result. They were each other's significant other before either realized it, even before Elliot divorced Kathy.

So this shouldn't have come as a surprise. Fin stopped in before he went home last evening; he'd finished the crime scene report, and in a move that surprised me, he wanted me to see it first. I hadn't thought he'd seen Olivia and I together often enough that he'd think that we were friends, but he did.

"What happened?" I asked him.

He normally has this hardened look. Mr. Former Narc, thinks he's seen it all, but last night he looked haggard, as if seeing his squad mate in so much pain had done a number on him. They're a close-knit group with a turnover rate virtually nonexistent compared with the other SV units in the city, so it probably did. He needed to talk; I know John talks to Olivia, Elliot and Olivia talk to each other, but I didn't know who Fin talked to. I'd bet it's Olivia, although I haven't seen them so I can't be a hundred percent sure.

He just shook his head, tapped the folder with a finger, and left. I was right; he talks to Olivia. She's the heart of the unit; if she dies, the unit will stop functioning, like a human body after the heart has stopped. I hurry out of the office and catch him in the hall waiting for the elevator. "Is she going to be all right?"

He looks at me with the ghost of a smile. "Yeah, she's gonna be okay. She's a tough cookie." And he's gone, into the elevator, and I'm left holding the folder.

I spent fifteen minutes after the autopsy reading the report in Fin's handwriting, and another half an hour imagining everything, seeing in color what Fin's report tells me in black and white. She grabbed Elliot's left forearm as he went over, and dislocated both her arms when she hit the rooftop and Chris Smallwood's and Elliot's weights came to a stop at the end of her arm. I know that adrenaline took the edge off some of her pain, enough for her to be able to focus on keeping hold of her partner, but that's all. Adrenaline couldn't compensate for her blood loss, couldn't give her the strength she needed to pull them both up. Adrenaline couldn't overcome the added handicap of a bullet in her shoulder, right where her muscles were stretching from the weight on her arms.

I can see Elliot hanging there at the end of her arm, feeling his own breath coming harder because Chris Smallwood's weight was stretching him thin, agonizing over the sounds of Olivia's pain above him and Smallwood's grasping, greedy hands pulling on his clothes as he clawed his way up Elliot's body. Elliot would have felt that, would have known that Smallwood would climb over him and use Olivia's faltering grip to get himself up over the edge. And I know no one who's shot a cop would hesitate to kick that same cop, who's lying on the edge of the roof in pain and unable to defend herself, into the alley below. He wouldn't care that he'd kill not only her, but also her partner. And two people whose lives are worth more than his would have died trying to save each other.

I want to see them together. But not in death. Thank you, Elliot, for making that choice.

I write in the cause of death blank, "Falling from height'. Falling. Just falling.

No mention of the angry kicking Elliot did to hurl Smallwood into the alley. No mention of the bruising on Smallwood's chest where Elliot's heels impacted. No mention of the last desperate kick that contacted Smallwood's diaphragm and forced the wind out of him, so he had to let go. No mention of Olivia's pain as she hung onto his flailing body, feeling her own body slip ever closer over that edge, helpless to stop her slow slide forward. No mention of one detective's desperate, agonized decision to save the life of the woman he loved by violating all of his long-cherished religious beliefs, deliberately committing murder to save someone who represented all the noblest emotions of the human soul.

I wish I could be truthful about what I saw, because falsifying my report could cost me my job if anyone finds out. But telling the truth could cost my friends what they fought to keep; each other, their lives, their jobs, possibly their freedom if someone decides that saving the one you love shouldn't come at the cost of a baby-raper's life. And truth, especially for a baby-raper, isn't worth that possible cost.

It isn't often that I get to make someone's life better. Usually my job means I can only give a death meaning, or give the police a case against someone who took a life.

This time I can give two of my friends a better life.

Sometimes I love my job.

Notes: I suddenly realized I should point out where I got the source material for some of my references. So: The reference to Melinda having been in the military is from the 7th season episode 'Blast'. The reference to Horace Gorman is from the 5th season episode titled 'Control'. The mention of Olivia's HIV test is from the 5th season episode titled 'Lowdown'.


End file.
